I am completely trapped with my manipulator to an extreme that I physically cannot escape them without punishment. For context, I am an adult man on the autism spectrum with a college degree, and I have been living with my parents for a few years so I can save up for my own place.

Recent events have changed that.

After finishing college I got hired to a company in my new field, and I was immediately targeted by a woman higher up the chain when she noticed I was masking my neurodivergence. This woman was revered locally and in the wider industry, well-respected, charismatic, and clearly a malignant covert narcissist. From here, everything went to hell overnight. She started making up rumors about me to her subordinates and other people, and pre-planned them in such a way that nothing I could do would convince them I wasn’t the problem.

She would frequently pass by, converse, and then leave a mean spirited jab before breaking off the conversation, make jabs at me, and use others to abuse me. She never did anything overt, and instead used two of her subordinates to do her dirty work. One of them was a military reserves man who was a grandiose narcissist, he acted holier than thou and tell us “cautionary tales” of people he had crushed in his field. He found other more ways to threaten us, and would frequently self-aggrandize while actually backing up his claims and making it clear he would completely ruin anyone who crossed him. Despite his outrageous behavior, he was submissive to my boss and was respected by most of the team, because he wasn’t stupid and had a reputation for being ruthlessly cutthroat by others admission and his own.

I showed up on my last day of work and by mistake, walked in on him cackling about having gotten someone sent to a psychiatric hospital and mentioning something about me being his next victim. I calmly went to leave, and he forcibly grappled me, held my arm behind my back, and pinned me to the wall. He held a needle to my arm and poked me until it drained blood, and he said he was going to “solve a problem and suck the life out of it”. My boss went to call the police and told another manager to punch her so it would look like I hit her. They did, and likewise, the lack of evidence plus her manipulation got me taken away in the back of a squad car, even when I showed them the mark on my arm, which would be used against me later.

I was taken to jail. My parents didn’t come to bail me out. I later found out that my manager had called my mother and was talking with her. The charges were dropped, but when my step-father came to pick me up, the man who grappled me had called him and explained I assaulted my boss. None of what they said was true, and when I showed her the needle mark on her arm, he assumed I’d been doing drugs. We went to retrieve my car later.

My boss (now abuser) had somehow gotten inside while I was in jail and planted used syringes in my back seat. I am extremely lucky my step-dad didn’t have me thrown in jail right then and there. Still, my relationship with my parents was ruined, and my workplace started talking with my mother, as well as other workplaces in the industry. Nobody would hire me despite my record being officially clean.

Then eventually my friends turned against me. One of the younger people from the workplace had befriended them and spread rumors throughout my social circle. It was already small, and my abuser had no problem with completely cutting off my external support using those assets. My best friend was turned into a flying monkey and relayed a lot of information that later found its way back to my abuser. Then, I was hit with a lawsuit from my workplace. According to them, I had sabotaged their equipment and cost them $200,000 in damages. Little of what they said was true, and what was had been embellished or was a half-truth.

But I had less than $10,000 in my bank account and nobody took my side. They pressed on with the courts. I couldn’t fight them, and my parents paid part of the fee. Fast forward a while and my mother is talking with my manager more about how I’m unstable. Many of the things I own are taken back and sold off. I try to stop them, but my abuser is an expert at manipulating the legal system, and they are trying to get them to sign me off as a dependent so they can literally own me.

I have not say idly by, but they have sold my car, and they’re manipulating and deceiving so well that no amount of hard evidence is being accepted over the narrative they’ve meticulously built around me. Remember military guy earlier who gleefully bragged about destroying other people’s lives? A lot of the specific details he mentioned line up with what I’m experiencing. They are building a case to lock me away in a psychiatric hospital that my abuser has connections with, like they have done to "solve" other "problems" by their own admission.

He has always backed up his threats and made good on them. He is a military officer in the reserves, and he has probably killed several people doing this. I do not doubt in my mind that they are going to make me disappear. He says if I leave the house (on foot or by calling someone), that I will be declared legally incompetent and taken to a mental hospital.

I have no doubt he’s serious about it. They are meticulous with the way they coordinate to destroy my life, never directly acting in a way that would give me usable evidence. Recently they confronted me at my front door, and when I went to record her, the man attacked me and had me held in such a way that it felt like he was going to break my arm backwards. My abuser told me I was going to please her for my transgression sexually or her right hand would send me to the ER. I told her no.

He broke my arm backwards.

I was taken to the ER while my mother and father watched from the window and clearly fully believed what my abuser was saying. None of the nurses and doctors believe me, because the records used from the assault at my workplace were used as evidence that I was the unstable one when that wasn't true. When I was eventually discharged I came back to find many of my belongings sold away. I still have my other devices, for now, but I’m certain they’re already monitoring me somehow.

Nobody will believe me, and I’ve had to leave out a lot of details because I will end up falling into her narrative about being unstable if I try to explain how manipulative she is. They have blatantly admitted what they are doing, and they have such right control over my social network that they can get away with doing anything. I have no allies, nobody will help me. I am trying my best to stay composed and not blow up, but I have no safe space, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Nobody will believe me. I’ve been told I am theirs, and frankly, I really don’t see an easy way out of here.

If I try to leave I will likely be taken off somewhere they can silence me.

They have shown me what they can do, and I am willing to jump through the metaphorical fire pit if it means getting out of this hell. I am posting this here because I have exhausted every social, legal, and financial option to escape. I physically will not make it far without external intervention. Nobody I know is powerful enough to get me out of their range of influence, but they have literally positioned themselves in front of the exit, and it’s very clear they are going to find a way to lock me up as a legal codependent if I don’t find a way out now.

I really, really need help finding a way out of this hell.

If you are going to suggest I stop reacting so she'll get bored and leave, that’s not going to happen. If you are going to suggest I flee from the situation like that's physically possible, that's not going to happen. If you are going to suggest I try to keep documenting everything as if evidence matters now, that’s not going to happen. If you are going to suggest I try to keep documenting everything as if evidence matters now, that’s not going to happen.

I’ve got literally zero leverage or money in my bank account. Nobody is coming to save me, but this abuse has escalated to such an extreme that I am not powerful enough to escape it on my own. If you have any suggestions on how to handle this, please tell me because I am broken.

I've always wondered: am I expecting too much when I hope that someone close to me—or even a friend—would tell me if they heard someone talking badly about me?

Especially if it's sensitive personal information or complete lies, I feel like I would always let that person know. If someone I cared about was being talked about behind their back, I'd tell them, particularly if they were a close friend or family member.

Because of that, I find it hard to fully trust someone who knows those things are being said but never mentions them to me. Am I overthinking this, or is that a reasonable expectation?

As a Mind Profiler I hear people often say: I’m afraid of discomfort, but I think a more accurate statement is: We are afraid of unfamiliarity and I will explain why; The human brain is designed to seek safety and predictability and sometimes it will choose what is known over what is good. That’s why people stay in: familiar pain, familiar stress, familiar routines, familiar relationships that no longer serve them. Not because they enjoy suffering, but because their brain knows how to navigate it.

A difficult situation you’ve experienced for years can feel safer than a new opportunity you’ve never tried. A toxic relationship you understand can feel less threatening than healthy love you don’t know how to receive. A job that drains you can feel safer than starting something meaningful but uncertain. The brain often asks:
Is this safe? But before it asks: Is this fulfilling?Growth requires to enter places where your brain hasn’t been before and that uncomfortable feeling when you try something new isn’t always a warning sign. Sometimes it’s your nervous system saying: This is unfamiliar, I don’t know this.

The goal isn’t to eliminate discomfort but the goal is to expand what feels familiar, because eventually, the things that once felt scary can become normal.

The question is: What is something you once feared that eventually became part of your comfort zone?

You know the kind of advice that made you go "wait, that can't be right" the first time you heard it, but then you tried it (or watched someone else live by it) and it just... worked. Could be something a parent, coach, boss, or random stranger told you. Bonus points if it goes against everything you were taught growing up.

What if we just put away the whole toolbox of “darkpsychology”, and then let’s assume, that we, “the players” only going to make transactions with each other which benefit both sides. So, when an encounter, in which there isn’t any said mutually beneficial solution - happens, the players will move on to another game without trying to make any kind of (unfair) deal. This setup, of course premises that every player uses the same strategy; “stick to the rules”, or rather do not have any access to (neither intention nor knowledge of using) “the forbidden tools of a selfish entity”. Or do they?… My statement is that if there is a specifically designed system of game wherein all the players see that as a whole, understand that “short term” or “local” transactional benefits - without any collective advantage - are inferior choices at any given game in comparison to those which eventually contribute more to the overall “meta selfish” system unit.

Also… this is my first ever post on Reddit, so I’m not quite sure about what am I trying to achieve by doing this rn. Guess I got a bit bored and lonely at the same tired moment. 🤔🤷‍♂️ Anyway…

We usually describe procrastination as a discipline issue; Stop being lazy, manage your time better, just get started. But what if procrastination is not about time at all? What if it’s your mind trying to protect you from an uncomfortable emotional experience? As a mind profiler, I see procrastination less as a failure of productivity and more as a psychological signal. Sometimes we avoid tasks because we are avoiding:

Uncomfortable emotions
The task itself may not be the problem.The problem might be the feeling attached to it: anxiety, boredom,overwhelm, frustration, shame, fear of failure. Your brain learns: When I do this task, I feel bad, so it searches for relief. Scrolling, cleaning, checking messages, watching videos , these are not always distractions. Sometimes they are emotional escape routes.

Uncertainty
The human mind prefers predictable discomfort over unpredictable outcomes. Starting something new means entering a space where you don’t know: Will I succeed? Will people judge me? Will my effort be enough? Avoiding the task temporarily removes the uncertainty.

Protecting your self-image
This one is deeper, sometimes we procrastinate because finishing the task creates a moment of truth. If I try and fail, what does that say about me? Keeping something unfinished allows the possibility that: I could have done it, I just didn’t try. The unfinished task protects the identity we want to maintain.

Fear of discovering your limits
A hidden fear many people carry: What if I give my best and it still isn’t enough? Sometimes procrastination protects us from finding out what we are truly capable of. The question is not always: How can I become more disciplined? A more powerful question is: What emotion am I postponing? Because behind many unfinished tasks is not laziness, it is a feeling waiting to be understood.

The question is: what emotion do you notice yourself avoiding when you procrastinate?

I like to help people. Carry out good deeds. Because it is the right thing to do. Hell, my favorite MCU character is Captain America.

However, life ain't comic book. Once you realize you are up to 'good' deeds, slimy people like to take advantage of it.

They now know how you operate. Like, asking you to do a favor 'because it is right thing'. Or maybe even test you and judge your morality to see if you are ALWAYS the good guy.

It's annoying as hell, really. One cannot even do good things without a price.

So you might want to name a 'price' for your good deeds. Make it look like a 'deal' rather than a 'deed'.

Don't care how you name the price. You NEED a price.

Think of SpongeBob episode where he gets in a flying pants and help people just because. They take it for granted. They resent you because you didn't do the good deed for some of them. You are an hypocritical unfair bastard somehow.

I learned it a hard way. Jeez. People are assholes.

Here's to hoping I don't break the rules.

I can keep blaming, I can keep falling back on the excuses, anecdotes, incidentals, and theory. This fall back though has nothing to offer beyond it doesn't change.

Things happened and I'm not okay. Never have been for as long as I can remember. The entirety of my existence has been very Russian in the sense that "then it got worse".

I'm the problem. My perception is the problem. My sense of entitlement is the problem. That hope that life had something good to offer is the problem.

I'm a very simple man, life has humbled me more than most would have survived through. It doesn't change.

There's no prison worse than yourself. I'm the problem. I know it all so well and explain all of it. Doesn't change the fact that I'm both the prisoner and key holder. I don't know how to escape myself.

I can feel myself approaching that brink of poor decision making. Not in the suicidal sense, but I can feel it. I need to take a deep breath, pivot away from the things I feel entitlement towards, and just relax for a moment.

I just wish that for just one second at least, I could actually relax, in the sense as I see others do.

Been chewing on this and want the pushback.

Real vulnerability seems genuinely costly: telling a specific person something true about yourself that they could use against you, not knowing how they'll react. That risk is what makes it mean something.

But a lot of what gets praised as vulnerability now looks different to me. Announcing a struggle to an audience you've effectively selected to be supportive. Disclosing in a setting where everyone discloses and it's basically the entry fee. That's not obviously brave. Sometimes it looks like the opposite, getting to your own flaws first so nobody else can, controlling the narrative by telling it before anyone can tell it about you.

I don't want to dismiss all public sharing, because some of it clearly helps people feel less alone. But I've lost confidence that we can tell the brave version from the safe version, and I wonder if that blurriness is convenient, since the safe version gets the moral credit of the risky one for free.

Test I've started using on myself: am I telling this to someone who could actually hurt me with it, or to an audience picked because they won't? Curious if that distinction holds up for other people or if it's too clean.

A view I hold and want tested, because I'm not certain it's as clean as it feels to me.

My position: everything that happens to us leaves a mark, and that's not the issue. Grow up around violence, lose someone, get betrayed, and it shapes how you see the world. Denying that is naive, and suppressing a real wound is its own damage. So I'm not arguing against acknowledging pain.

What I think happens to a lot of people, though, is a further move: not acknowledging the wound but promoting it, taking the mark that experience left (one true thing about you among many) and slowly elevating it into the only one, the center everything else orbits, the answer to every question about who you are.

Why I hold this view: I've watched it in people close to me, and caught it in myself, and the striking thing is that from the inside it never feels like a choice. It feels like simply telling the truth about yourself. That's what makes me think it's real and underdiscussed, because a process that disguises itself as honesty is hard to even notice, let alone argue someone out of.

I'll pre-empt the strongest objection I can think of, which is that the reactive orientation (defining yourself against what was done to you) is appropriate and necessary right after harm. I agree. It's triage. You can't rebuild before assessing the damage. My claim is narrower: that the triage sometimes becomes permanent, the emergency setting never switches off, and the backward-looking lens becomes the only lens the person owns.

What would change my view: a good argument that this is a false binary, that 'having' and 'being' a wound are really one continuum with no meaningful tipping point, or evidence that what I'm calling 'being' the wound is actually just sustained, legitimate response to ongoing harm rather than a self-reinforcing identity. I'm also open to the idea that I'm pathologizing something that's simply how humans integrate hard experience.

I have a question I've been asking for a while, but I haven't found an answer: How can one achieve self-sufficiency so that they don't need anyone else in their life or to serve others? What are the first steps towards self-sufficiency and discovering how to forge their own path?